1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the presentation of electronic text and, more particularly, to the use of quote bars which can be activated to display information about the origin of the text and about its copyright status.
2. Description of Related Art
The digital transfer of information between individuals, whether by electronic mail, the World Wide Web, or other Internet services such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP), can easily lead to confusion about the original author of such material. The problem is especially acute when individuals use the cut and paste functionality of text editors to selectively copy portions of a second document into their own. Although one individual may be careful to give credit where credit is due, others may not. Even when explicit credit is given to the original author, such as in a footnote, it may be hard to discern that credit has been given while reading the document on a computer.
Electronic mail is one area where this problem is clearly demonstrable. When text from an earlier electronic mail message is copied by a user of current electronic mail systems, the fact that it has been copied is indicated to the recipient in one of three ways. Dashed lines above and below the quoted material, with an appropriate caption is one method. Another is to place greater than (xe2x80x9c greater than xe2x80x9d) sign at the left of each line of quoted text. Finally, some systems provide no automatic means to indicate quoted material, relying solely upon the user to insert a caption indicating the original source.
A problem encountered by recipients of electronic mail containing quoted material indicated by the dashed-line method noted above, when reading a quote that occupies more than one screen, is that the recipient often no longer is able to see the dotted lines due to the length of the quoted material.
Difficulties also exist with electronic mail that has used the greater than symbol (xe2x80x9c greater than xe2x80x9d) quotation method. If the recipient wishes to quote the material in a more standard way, by using quotation marks or indentation, he is faced with the task of removing each xe2x80x9c greater than xe2x80x9d from each line, a process that can be especially tedious if the text editor employed does not support global search and replace functions. Although the xe2x80x9c greater than xe2x80x9d method does provide a consistent way of quoting material and does reveal the source of the quotation it does so in a way that is clumsy and confusing.
Additionally, none of the quotation methods provide a way for the user to access the source of the original material. For example, a quotation taken from a document published on the World Wide Web may indicate the author and title of the document, but it rarely indicates the Universal Resource Locator (URL) that the user would need to view the source document.
The use of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and its subset Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is well known. The standards allow software enabled readers and browsers to format and display a document in the same way, regardless of the computing device being used. Standards such as SGML and HTML allow for device and operating system independence which is critical in the heterogeneous environment of the Internet. The use of SGML and HTML is widespread, well-understood and the standards are validated, maintained and extended by formally constituted bodies of individuals from government, industry and academia.
Readers and browsers are known which recognize a particular file format and activate the appropriate software module to view the file. This technology allows a single reader or browser to display a wide variety of files, such as graphic images, hypertext documents, and ASCII text, within the same user interface in a way that is transparent to the user.
The present invention provides apparatus, systems, processes and computer program products which will allow individuals to both easily quote textual information and to easily view the citation and source of quoted textual material they receive. Additionally, the system provides techniques to ensure that the citation for quoted material cannot be removed and for providing the user access to the original source of the material in a convenient and standard way.
Instead of using the prior art methods of quotation, the present system employs xe2x80x9cquote-barsxe2x80x9d. Quote-bars have distinct advantages over the prior art in that they provide a unique and superior method of identifying quoted text. Instead of columns of individual xe2x80x9c greater than xe2x80x9ds, a quote-bar is a single object. As an object, quote-bars respond to events initiated by the user in a standard way. Selecting the quote-bar, via a pointing device or keyboard of a computing device, allows the user to manipulate the quote-bar and the text associated with it in a manner familiar to users of graphical user interfaces. Additionally, if the quote-bar is selected in a manner equivalent to the commonly used double-click, then the source of the quoted material is displayed in a dialog box for the user""s inspection.
Quote-bars may be created by the user when manually entering text. Such a quote-bar may be made to be persistent; that is, the quote-bar cannot be removed without removing the associated text. The text that is controlled by the quote-bar can also have attributes that prevent the entire quote or a portion of it from being changed or modified by subsequent users.
Quote-bars may also contain, depending upon the source of the textual material, hypertext links to the source of the material, which may be the electronic mail address of the sender or author, the URL of the original document, or the FTP site from which the original document may be accessed.
The present system also allows for the conversion of the prior art""s quotation format into quote-bars for documents that are received by the user and the conversion of quote-bar information into the prior art""s format for transmission to readers or browsers that do not support quote-bars.
The invention relates to apparatus for displaying text information including a display, a keyboard, and a computer, connected to the keyboard and the display. The computer is configured to display quoted or derived text material as an object including a quote bar. The apparatus can be implemented, inter alia, as a browser, a text editor or an e-mail editor. A mouse can be used to displays information about a source of the quoted or derived text material by clicking on the quote bar. The quoted or derived text material can be repositioned using the mouse to drag and drop the quote bar to a different location.
Information about the quoted or derived text material can be displayed using the mouse to click on the quote bar. That information can include information about origin of the text material, a network address where the text material originated or information about the copyright status of the quoted or derived text material.
The invention is also directed to a method of displaying information about a source of quoted or derived text material by associating the text material with a quote bar, and associating the information about a source with the quote bar so that when the quote bar is selected, the information about the source is displayed. Separation or deletion of the copyright information from the text material can be prevented.
The invention is also directed to a method of converting a document containing embedded quote bar information into a document displayable by a reader unequipped to handle quote bar information, by, for each line of text marked as encompassed by a quote bar, prefacing the line with an one or more ASCII characters.
The invention is also directed to a method of converting a document containing an ASCII character representing a quoted or derived information into a quote bar representation of that quoted or derived information, by, for each consecutive line of text marked with the same number of the one or more ASCII characters, replacing at least one of the ASCII characters with a quote bar.
The invention is also directed to a system for communicating textual information, including a network and a plurality of computers connected to the network, at least one of the computers configured to group quoted or derived information together with a quote bar.
The invention also relates to computer program products implementing these techniques.
The novel features of this invention solve important problems with the creation and manipulation of quoted text, whether that text is contained within electronic mail or is a stand-alone document available for electronic retrieval. User are presented with a simple and intuitive method for manipulating quoted text and viewing its source. Creators of text are provided with additional protection by ensuring that whenever that text is copied, the source information about the text is also copied.
Still other objects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein only the preferred embodiment of the invention is shown and described, simply by way of illustration of the best mode contemplated of carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various obvious respects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawing and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as restrictive.